Introduction to Rebooting Electronic Literature
Rebooting Electronic Literature is an open-source, multimedia book that documents pre-web works of electronic literature from the library from the Electronic Literature Lab (ELL) directed by Dene Grigar at Washington State University Vancouver. The book is a natural outgrowth from Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop's Pathfinders project, building out the research methodology developed from that endeavor to continue providing access and preserving important works of electronic literature made fragile by hardware, software, and media formats.
The seven works selected for this volume are among the most unique and fragile of ELL's library. Sarah Smith's King of Space (1991), the first documented e-lit work of science fiction, was produced with Hypercard 2.0 and a specially created programming language called Kingwriter. David Kolb's Socrates in the Labyrinth (1994) is one of a handful of hypertext essays produced during the pre-web period and certainly the only one focusing on philosophy. Jane Yellowlees Douglas' "I Have Said Nothing" (1993), which––along with Michael Joyce’s afternoon: a story––appeared in W. W. Norton & Co.’s Postmodern American Fiction (1997), the only works of electronic literature ever published in one of its many collections. Other works we cover in this book include Thomas M. Disch's AMNESIA (1986); Mary-Kim Arnold's "Lust" (1993); Rob Kendall's Life Set for Two (1996); and Judy Malloy's its name was Penelope (1989,1993).
As with the works documented in the Pathfinders project, these seven were produced with specially created software like Kingwriter and the King Edward Adventure game authoring system or proprietary software, Storyspace and HyperCard. All require a degree of interactivity between the reader and the work. They were also among the first computer-based works of literature to be sold commercially in the U.S. and, because of their availability through commercial distribution, were influential in shaping literary theory and criticism that, today, are used to discuss born digital writing. All but AMNESIA and its name was Penelope are literary works in danger of becoming inaccessible to the public because they were produced on and for computer platforms that today are obsolete.
Our method of documentation follows that of Pathfinders, save two innovations: We live-streamed the Traversals via YouTube and captured audience participation during the event through YouTube live chat and social media networks, Facebook and Twitter. These additions allowed us to better achieve the goal that underpins the Pathfinders methodology––that is, to document the experience of early digital literature.
In developing the project, we continue to provide information helpful to scholars. Publication dates, versions, production methods have been vetted by publishers and artists when possible. Thus, we hope to clear up discrepancies relating to this information as well as offer information previously unknown about these works. Jane Yellowlees Douglas' "I Have Said Nothing," for example, has a publication date of 1993 but appears in the Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext in Winter 1994. The CD version was released in 1998.
The seven works selected for this volume are among the most unique and fragile of ELL's library. Sarah Smith's King of Space (1991), the first documented e-lit work of science fiction, was produced with Hypercard 2.0 and a specially created programming language called Kingwriter. David Kolb's Socrates in the Labyrinth (1994) is one of a handful of hypertext essays produced during the pre-web period and certainly the only one focusing on philosophy. Jane Yellowlees Douglas' "I Have Said Nothing" (1993), which––along with Michael Joyce’s afternoon: a story––appeared in W. W. Norton & Co.’s Postmodern American Fiction (1997), the only works of electronic literature ever published in one of its many collections. Other works we cover in this book include Thomas M. Disch's AMNESIA (1986); Mary-Kim Arnold's "Lust" (1993); Rob Kendall's Life Set for Two (1996); and Judy Malloy's its name was Penelope (1989,1993).
As with the works documented in the Pathfinders project, these seven were produced with specially created software like Kingwriter and the King Edward Adventure game authoring system or proprietary software, Storyspace and HyperCard. All require a degree of interactivity between the reader and the work. They were also among the first computer-based works of literature to be sold commercially in the U.S. and, because of their availability through commercial distribution, were influential in shaping literary theory and criticism that, today, are used to discuss born digital writing. All but AMNESIA and its name was Penelope are literary works in danger of becoming inaccessible to the public because they were produced on and for computer platforms that today are obsolete.
Our method of documentation follows that of Pathfinders, save two innovations: We live-streamed the Traversals via YouTube and captured audience participation during the event through YouTube live chat and social media networks, Facebook and Twitter. These additions allowed us to better achieve the goal that underpins the Pathfinders methodology––that is, to document the experience of early digital literature.
In developing the project, we continue to provide information helpful to scholars. Publication dates, versions, production methods have been vetted by publishers and artists when possible. Thus, we hope to clear up discrepancies relating to this information as well as offer information previously unknown about these works. Jane Yellowlees Douglas' "I Have Said Nothing," for example, has a publication date of 1993 but appears in the Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext in Winter 1994. The CD version was released in 1998.
With the traversal videos and ensuing author interviews, we attempted a first cut at an oral history of early electronic literature. This effort yielded several notable insights, such as Judy Malloy's description of online interactions with her audience during the composition of Uncle Roger, Shelley Jackson's acknowledgment that the origins of Patchwork Girl owe something to Avital Ronell as well as George Landow, John McDaid's description of Funhouse as an attempt to "write a novel no 20th-century novelist could write," and Bill Bly's revelation that his work on We Descend has continued beyond Storyspace into the Web and other environments.
This open-source, multimedia book, is funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities through a Start Up grant from the Office of Digital Humanities. The NEH support made it possible to work directly with the artists, develop the materials for this book, and create this book for open-source access. Without the assistance from the NEH, Pathfinders would not have been possible.
Many other individuals and organizations provided support for our research.
From the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver: Madeleine Brookman served as Grigar's research assistant and was funded through fellowships and grants provided by Washington State University. She was responsible for final edits for and the management of all of the videos found in the book, the production of the Pathfinders trailer, and uploading, tagging and describing media for the book. We acknowledge the videography of Aaron Wintersong and early organization by Amalia Vacca, who served as Grigar's first research assistant and who helped to organize the traversals and interviews. Greg Philbrook provided tech support for most traversals and interviews. Will Luers, faculty member in the CMDC leading its digital publishing initiative, is responsible for the design and styling of this book.
From the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Brian Keilen and Rachael Sullivan, both doctoral students, worked with Moulthrop to catalog the raw video and audio files, construct first cuts of the traversal videos, and assemble static graphics. The Digital Humanities Laboratory in the Golda Meir Memorial Library at UWM provided work space and equipment for this effort.
We thank the Electronic Literature Organization for its leadership in developing methods for evaluating quality of “digital” creative and critical works and its insights into cataloging its growing body of “digital” fiction, poetry, and other literary forms––activities from which this research grows. We owe special thanks to Dean Anne Balsamo of the New School of Public Engagement, who brought together the two incipient strains of this project, and to Noah Wardrip-Fruin of the University of California Santa Cruz, whose 2012 Media Systems Workshop set the scene for that crucial conversation. We appreciate the support of Tara McPherson, Erik Loyer, and others at the University of Southern California's Alliance for Networking Visual Culture for the development of the Scalar platform on which the book is built. We thank Matthew Kirschenbaum and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland College Park for sharing The Bly Collection with us for our project. We particularly recognize Grigar’s Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University Vancouver, which provided access to her collection of computers and works, without which the project would not have been possible. We thank Mark Bernstein of Eastgate for taking the time to answer questions about publication dates and packaging, as well as giving us access to images needed for the book. We also thank the Modern Language Association for allowing us to exhibit our Pathfinders research at the 2014 conference in Chicago. Finally, we thank the four artists who provided their time and insights into their work. They all shared so much of their knowledge, history, insights, and time to this project. Literary history is better for it.
The development of this project is documented at the Pathfinders blog managed by Grigar. Also of note is the Pathfinders YouTube channel where rough cuts of videos were made available, early on, for scholars to use for their research and the curated Vimeo channel where all videos are now hosted.
The exhibit, mentioned previously, that showcased these authors and their works as well as contemporary expressions of experimental writing at the Modern Language Association's 2014 convention, is archived at Pathfinders: 25 Years of Experimental Literary Art. The exhibition ran from 9-11 January and was curated by Grigar and Moulthrop. Literary scholars were able to preview the videos and photos developed for the project and access some of works on Grigar's vintage computers, though it should be noted that three of the computers shipped to Chicago were destroyed en route to the exhibit. Though we mourn their loss, it represents exactly the calamity our work of preservation is meant to address.
Finally, we are already thinking ahead to an independent book project, Traversals, that further explores the uses of preservation for digital writing, and to the next version of Pathfinders that will include Moulthrop's Victory Garden, an afterword by Joseph Tabbi, and possibly transcriptions of the traversal videos for each artist. In a word, we see this project as one that will continue, adding artists and their works and capturing important information that needs to be documented for posterity.
Funders and Collaborators
